Alpha Trooper
The Alpha Trooper CS-12 is the love child of the Rampage and the Retaliator. It’s the a little shorter than a Retaliator with a barrel attached. It has single-fire and slam-fire capability. When it predecessor was released—N-Strike Alpha Trooper CS-18—it originally came with an 18-dart drum magazine, but this new version comes with a 12-dart magazine. A lot of the time, people don’t know whether they want the Rampage or the Alpha Trooper. The Rampage has a bigger magazine and the foregrip makes it much easier to prime the blaster. The Alpha Trooper is smaller than the Rampage, so it’s easier to store, and the magwell is facing the floor, so when you put a magazine in the blaster won’t feel unbalanced like a Rampage does since you inset the magazine on the side. The one downside of the Alpha Trooper is the priming handle. It functions like a pump-action shotgun. There’s a small ledge so that you hand doesn’t slip off the grip. For me it felt a little awkward at first when I tried firing it while aiming down the sights, but after realizing how awesome it is in other aspects, I forgot about it. The blaster also has two attachment points for a bandolier or carbineer: on the grip and on the priming handle. Out of the box, the Alpha Trooper CS-12 comes with the blaster, a 12-dart magazine, and 12 N-Strike Elite Darts. Using the Alpha Trooper is exactly like a Rampage. Pull the priming handle back, insert magazine, either hold the trigger down and push and pull back and forth until empty, or push the priming handle forward, pull the trigger, release the trigger, and pull back, and push forward. To reload, pull the priming handle back and pull on the magazine release nub that is on the side of the magazine well. Usability Casual Nerfing: This is probably the best blaster that is uses a plunger system. It’s a little smaller than the Retaliator with a stock and barrel attached, so rounding corners isn’t as easy as a Retaliator without the barrel, but it’s manageable. It’s great from longer ranges to because the barrel on the Alpha Trooper is integrated Rating: 9.5/10 '''War Games: '''This is a great primary because it’s smaller than the Rampage, the magwell is vertical, and it has has slam-fire. Like it Rampage, it’s great for the controlled players and spammers. Rating: 9/10 '''Humans vs Zombies: '''Besides the semi-automatics and the fully automatics, the Alpha Trooper definitely stands on it’s own. Because it’s smaller than Rampage, you can store it in you backpack along with an extra magazine easily, and then for the missions you can carry four or five 18-dart magazines and just have an Alpha Trooper. Rating: 9.5/10 The Alpha Trooper CS-12 is one of my favorite blasters. The rate of fire may not be as fast as the semi- automatic flywheel blasters, but the ranges will stay the same because it’s a plunger system, unlike the semi-automatic flywheel blasters where if you pull the trigger to fast, the flywheels won’t have enough time to get back up to full speed resulting in a significant decrease in range. FINAL RATING: 9.3/10